Μυθιστόρημα

The Maidens are Cambridge University's most exclusive society, whose members are selected by the charismatic professor of Greek tragedy, Edward Fosca. A SECRETIVE SET OF THE BRIGHTEST, MOST CAPTIVATING STUDENTS. When one of the Maidens is murdered, grieving young therapist Mariana Andros is drawn back to the idyllic campus where she was once herself a student.

THE GROUP FROM WHICH EACH VICTIM WILL BE CHOSEN. Because beneath the university's ancient traditions and beauty is a web of secrets, jealousy and lies. And when the killer threatens the person she loves most, Mariana will give anything to stop them - even her own life...

From the #1 global bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together Greek mythology, murder, and obsession... * * * * *'There's definitely a flavour of The Secret History to Alex Michaelides's second novel ... The Maidens is a compelling read, and delivers its Hellenic thrills in style.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'A book which screams 'make me into a TV series' ...

his writing, especially his characterisation, possesses a unique sparkle and more promise than most other writers.' DAILY MAIL'Nothing short of genius.' WOMAN & HOME'How do you go about following one of the biggest thrillers of the past decade? You write something even better.' CHRIS WHITAKER, bestselling author of WE BEGIN AT THE END'Grips from intriguing start to horrifying finish ... A brilliant achievement.'HARRIET TYCE'A page-turner of the first order'DAVID BALDACCI'The greatest campus novel since The Secret History by Donna Tartt ... with a climatic twist that you will NEVER see coming.'TONY PARSONS'A stunning psychological thriller ...

Michaelides is on a roll.'PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

With an introduction by Jonathan LethemIt is 1913, and Viennese high society is determined to find an appropriate way of celebrating the seventieth jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef. But as the aristocracy tries to salvage something illustrious out of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the ordinary Viennese world is beginning to show signs of more serious rebellion. Caught in the middle of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: youngish, rich, an ex-soldier, seducer and scientist. Unable to deceive himself that the jumble of attributes and values that his world has bestowed on him amounts to anything so innate as a 'character', he is effectively a man 'without qualities', a brilliant, detached observer of the spinning, racing society around him. Part satire, part visionary epic, part intellectual tour de force, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil is a work of immeasurable importance.

Artist Jed Martin emerges from a ten-year hiatus with good news. It has nothing to do with his broken boiler, the approach of another lamentably awkward Christmas dinner with his father or the memory of his doomed love affair with the beautiful Olga. It is that, for his new exhibition, he has secured the involvement of none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq.

The exhibition brings Jed new levels of global fame. But, his boiler is still broken, his ailing father flirts with oblivion and, worst of all, he is contacted by an inspector requiring his help in solving an unspeakable, atrocious and gruesome crime, involving none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq...

'any narrative of human action and adventure - whether we call it history or Romance - is certain to be a fragile handiwork, more easily rent than mended'The fragility - and the durability - of human life and art dominate this story of American expatriates in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Befriended by Donatello, a young Italian with the classical grace of the 'Marble Faun', Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon find their pursuit of art taking a sinister turn as Miriam's unhappy past precipitates the present into tragedy. Hawthorne's 'International Novel' dramatizes the confrontation of the Old World and the New and the uncertain relationship between the 'authentic' and the 'fake', in life as in art.

In the gripping third volume of Christelle Dabos's best-selling saga, Ophelia, the mirror-travelling heroine, finds herself in the magical city of Babel, guarding a secret that may provide a key both to the past and the future. After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima, her home ark, it is finally time to act, to put what she has discovered in the Book of Faruk to good use. Under an assumed identity she travels to Babel, a cosmopolitan and thoroughly modern ark that is the jewel of the universe, and where automata have taken over the most humble jobs from humans. But under the surface of this pacific and orderly ark social unrest stirs, fed by the memories of a fateful purge long ago, and the inhabitants' growing fear of being replaced altogether. Will Ophelia's talent as a reader suffice to avoid her being lured into a deadly trap by her ever more fearful adversaries? Will she ever see Thorn, her betrothed, again?

Drawing on an astonishing cache of letters unearthed centuries after Datini's death, it reveals to us a shrewd, enterprising, anxious man, as he makes deals, furnishes his sumptuous house, buys silks for his outspoken young wife and broods on his legacy. It is an unequalled source of knowledge about the texture of daily life in the small, earthy, violent, striving world of fourteenth-century Tuscany.

IndependentNora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?

From the beginning Oliver Walzer is a natural - at ping-pong. Even with his improvised bat (the Collins Classic edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) he can chop, flick, half-volley like a champion. At sex he is not so adept, but with tuition from Sheeny Waxman, fellow member of the Akiva Social Club Table Tennis Team and stalwart of the Kardomah coffee bar, his game improves. Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize.